Wednesday, January 25, 2006

1991, India tour Australia : A young man named Saurav Ganguly made a disastrousdebut..... to follow it up, some articles here and there in the media regarding his failiure....... and the selectors on there part do the predictable......drop him from the national side.At this time most would have thought that this young kid would ever show up in theindian line up.

1996, India tour England : A matured young man Saurav Ganguly selected for the Indiantest team makes his sparkling test debut, brilliant batting display studded with breathtakingdrives in the offside becomes an instant star in a nation mad about its cricket and cricketers......to follow it up delivers consistent performances throughout the tour..... and the selectors onthere part do the predictable again, gave him a chance in the ODI's where he soon becomesthe king of the offside.... one of the most dangerous opener... the maharaj of indian cricket...with Sachin Tendulkar he formed the best opening pair of there era. Saurav Ganguly is a suprstar.

2001, Australia tour India : An Ambitious Saurav Ganguly is now the indian captain and hada dream in his eyes..... to conqour the world, but infront is the challange of facing the worldbeaters the world champions Australia, the optimistic few gave india an outside chance, in the3 test series, india are 1-0 down after the first test, most predict a walkover by the worldchampions yet again..... but a new indian team has just got its saviours, heroes are born outof people whose selection in the team was doubtful, indian team has got over the worldchampions, and the world, the leadership shows the team is a unit to contend with....indian teams success was credited to Saurav's aggressive attitude with reflected on indianteam....Saurav Ganguly was an instant star again as indian Captain... India Loves SauravGanguly.

From 2001 to 2004, Saurav Ganguly was a captain of the indian cricket team whichseemed hungry for success, had some of the senior players - best in the business Sachinand Rahul, and the young brigade which Ganguly had very carefully built- Sehwag,Bhajji, Yuvraj, Kaif, Zaheer, Pathan. India performance shows in beating Pakistan inPakistan, beating England in much hyped Natwest final, winning champions trophy,and reaching the World Cup 2003 finals.

2004-2005, A Desperate Saurav Ganguly was now more of a Captain than a performer,his performance had started dipped some of the so called experts found glitches in hisbatting technique (which evidently was there since he had started playing), this manwho gave up his opening slot in ODI's for the team, the man who persisted with someof the current indian players in there not so good times and was critisized for the same.The man was now under pressure to keep his place in the side, some of the so calledexperts wanted him to step down...... One of them was current Indian Coach Greg Chappel,who infact told him to step down and wrote a secret email to the BCCI to remove himas the National Captain. In the mean time Saurav Ganguly had now become the mostsuccessful indian captain and led india to its first overseas series win after 19 years. ......despite this slectors give more importance to the email sent by the coach .... and dropSaurav Ganguly from the Indian team.... despite some disappointment among somedie hard Saurav fans (i m not one of those) the nation takes this decision as a step forward.

Late 2005: A brave Saurav Ganguly, makes a comeback into the national team onthe back of some good performances, his performance in the second test after the firstwas washed off was more than satisfactory considering the kind of resolve he showed....but the selectors this time have done the unpredictable, excluded Saurav from the teamwhich will face Lanka in Ahemadabad.

The entire nation is in shock over this paethetic decision, only because this time aroundSaurav did not deserve this the reasons for this decision are non cricketing... to me thereason is that man called Greg Chappell who gave his 5 reasons, each of which couldbe well debated and beaten, for ousting Saurav Ganguly at this point of time. A manwho himself does not have basic manners and dignity to respect the public in a democraticcountry (the incidence where he made indecent gesture at a group of Saurav fans) and thendoes not have the guts to accept his wrong doing (him denying making that gesture) wasgiven more importance than a man who gave the best 15 years of his life to this nation,and brought home never before glory and success to the nation as far as cricket was concerned.

Now my intent in writing this is not that i am a die hard fan of Saurav Ganguly, but as anIndian when i think and analyse this whole episode it raises this Question, that Is it aSin to be a Hero in Indian Cricket ?

.....I leave this Question to be answered by all u indians who felt proud everytime indiawon in the last 5 years of Saurav's Captaincy.

It is still amazing how we got this far in a short span of 15 years since privatization began in earnest. Our middle class has expanded dramatically during this period, the economy growing at 7% rate, one of the best in the world. The improvement is seen is various sectors, from Information Technology, telecommunications, media, high tech, Agriculture, manufacturing, natural resouce excavation and so on. The GDP has grown year after year. Regardless of those boring statistics and numbers what really matters is the improvement in average lives of our citizens. Having said that, imagine India with just two things gone

1. Corruption2. hoarding money/gold and other valuables under the mattress

Man we can give some real fight to the Chinese who are clearly way ahead of us. I think we need the following

1. Instill a sense of real patriotism in all Indians. If you love your country more than your self interest, you would not steal from it. A large section of our people have become greedy beyond imagination and steal from the rest of us. The next question is how do we do that and that's where my next point comes in.

2. Cleanup the political system. The ultimate goal of this process is to allow well meaning leaders to emerge from the pack. Hey we have billion people and I'm sure there is no shortage of good leaders who would lead us out of this mirage. We need the kind of leaders we had during independence, selfless, dedicated to the well being of all Indians who can effectively communicate with our people, appeal to all those good men and women who have decency and instill that sense of patiotism for the larger goal. Band of leaders who have vision to compete at the global scale, work with our business leaders to grow the economy and so on.

Our current political parties are broken beyond repair. It encourages patriarchical system where people with long history of being in politics are shuffled up the chain and become leaders. It needs to be dynamic and encouraging of newer blood. The parties need to be open and accountable.

*** In short, a refined, dynamic and forward looking political parties are key to promoting new breed of leaders who in turn can guide the country out of this mess. It will take time but it's got to be done.

About Me

I am from Gurgaon , India and working for a reputed software company in India. I hold a Bachelor's Degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering. The views expressed here are my own personal rants and in *no way* reflect those of anyone else, including my employer.